Pa. Man Tied To Supremacist Groups Elected To Local GOP Committee With Single Vote...His Own [View all]

A northeastern Pennsylvania man with longstanding ties to white supremacist groups entered a polling place on primary election day and wrote in his name for a low-level position with the local Republican Party committee.

Steve Smith wound up getting elected with a single vote — his own — and now presents a headache for a GOP that doesn’t want him but might not be able to get rid of him.

Pennsylvania Democrats spread word last week of his April election, linking to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center that described Smith’s associations with “an extraordinary array of white nationalist, skinhead, and neo-Nazi groups,” including a group formerly known as the Keystone State Skinheads.

The Luzerne County Republican Committee and the state GOP denounced Smith’s election to a four-year committee post representing Pittston’s Fourth Ward, saying his views in no way represent their own.